Hand purled plaid

[AKScott]

Amen to "time consuming," excellent how-to by BarbT here:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...y-plaid-40931/


When I was buying up swatches I found 1/2 meter of double wide in clan Scott modern red from House of Edgar, priced like a swatch; so I bought it.

The first night I finished 7.5" and had a huge wad of thread hanging off the cut edge:



So I got organized, the 2x4 is going to be the main upright for my new stitching horse so I can sew up my sgian sheath, I got interupted.



I found rather quickly I like the "barber pole" effect in the individual purls:



And I found a pretty good way to manage both strands at once. Sorry about the depth of field, notice the three red threads are already twisted, I am ready to twist the black three together:



And I found my nemesis. The vertical green stripe in the middle is ten threads wide. All the other narrow stripes are six threads, the 'other' green stripes are 24 threads and the red fields are 50 threads wide.

For the red fields I am using three from each edge in another barber pole purl. That leaves 44. Instead of 7 purls of 6 threads each with two stragglers, in the middle of the red field I am doing the two middle purls at 3+4 threads. Looks fine even from six inches away.

For the nemesis green if I use three from each edge that leaves 4 in the middle, and a 2+2 purl looks pretty wimpy.



So I have been using three from one edge, leaving seven threads in the nemesis stripe:



And two from the other, leaving a 2+3 purl of solid green in the middle:



So far I am eleven hours in. I bet doing both cut (55") edges is going to take about 30 hours. But I am going to end up with a magnificent scarf.